


Undying Fidelity

by Tenukii



Series: TaneLoki [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel Fix-It, rather stupid but I don't care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-09 20:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18645877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenukii/pseuds/Tenukii
Summary: When the Avengers bring her in contact with the other Infinity Stones, the tesseract sees her and Loki's future, and she's none too happy about it.  She takes matters into her own cube to fix things, and consequently reunites Loki and his recently un-snapped partner, the Collector.





	1. Chapter 1

“One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not. . . changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.”

-Douglas Adams, _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_

_\--_

The tesseract had always known she would die for the stone inside her, but like most mortals, she had not prepared for that death, nor expected it to come so soon.

And as much as she loved Loki, a part of her believed he would be the one to kill her—probably not directly, but he would have a hand in it.  He would destroy her for the Space Stone at her core, or else give her up to someone else who would.

This latter came to pass, yet for all her believing, she still didn’t expect it.

\--

_From deep underground, within the vault, the tesseract felt Asgard dying around her.  She could see its destruction—the fighting, the death—through the ground itself, for even Asgard was only a three-dimensional world, and she was a four-dimensional being._

_If Asgard was destroyed, she would go with it.  With their bodies of nearly unbreakable crystal, tesseracts were practically immortal unless wounded while taking the form of a more vulnerable species.  A tesseract who shifted into the shape of a human being could be killed by a blade or a bullet just as easily as a real human could; but as a crystalline cube, most tesseracts just went on living.  On and on and on._

_Yet not even a tesseract could survive an attack strong enough to destroy all of Asgard._

**_It is better this way,_ ** _she told herself. **I already know I cannot protect the stone forever, and this way, it will die with me.**_

_But then: **I don’t want to die.  I did not choose this life, but I don’t want to die!**_

_So when she saw Loki begin his descent to the vault from far above, she had to decide whether to ask him to save her.  Whether to put her life, and the ending of it, back into his hands._

_He wasn’t thinking of her when he entered the vault.  He almost passed her by without even looking, until he heard the barest whisper in his mind._

**_Smaar brodir. . . ._ **

_Loki slowed his steps and turned to look at her: the glowing cosmic cube the Asgardians had called Astridr, beautiful goddess, even as they shut her away like any other powerful object they felt charged to protect._

_Loki heard her voice in his thoughts and in his heart.  With his glance into her azure depths, he felt she saw right into his very soul, and for that moment, he forgot everything else, even the crown of Surtur clutched in his grasp._

_“Astridr,” Loki breathed aloud.  “I’m sorry.”_

_She gave a little sparkle and replied,_ **_Hmf, sorry?  I am proud of you.  But sacrificing your life is not so glamorous when you actually die and do not get to see the statues and dramas dedicated to your memory._**

_Loki’s high-boned, pale cheeks flushed ever so slightly.  Somehow, those tributes to his cleverness seemed tawdry when he thought about the tesseract witnessing them._

_Astridr made her decision then and said to him, **Smaar brodir, please.  Take me with you.**_

_Loki shook off his thrall and darted forward to scoop her up in one hand before hurrying on with his mission._

\--

Now Astridr realized that she really _should_ have let herself and the Space Stone die with Asgard.  But no, she had behaved selfishly and willfully.  She had managed to fail at the single duty for which she had been created.

 _The tesseract is misbehaving_ , thought Astridr.  She felt Loki’s slender hand trembling beneath her as he watched his brother’s face twist in agony under the force of the Power Stone. 

She whispered into her _smaar brodir_ ’s mind, _Let me go, my dear Loki.  I’ll be all right._

The tesseract thought Loki might realize she was lying when he told her, _I’m sorry._   She _knew_ he realized it when his last thought to her came in a rush: _I love you, Astridr.  Not the stone. **You.**_

Loki turned away as soon as Thanos took the tesseract in his hand.  The one glimpse he got of Astridr so lovely and delicate in that tremendous, murderous hand horrified him.  He couldn’t stand to see any more.

He heard it nevertheless: the sickening crunch when Thanos’s fist closed over the tesseract and shattered her crystalline body, and her life’s last whisper as Thanos blew away the mist of her soul.  Teeth gritted and eyes clenched shut, Loki held back any other show of emotion even when he heard that final whisper in his mind.

 _Remember that I loved you, **smaar brodir**._  Then, weaker, _I have failed.  I’m sorry._

 _You never failed me, never, I am the one—_ Loki thought, but the tesseract was already gone.

If he hadn’t been overcome with grief and rage, Loki might have thought better of throwing everything away on one last, hopeless trick.  But Astridr—the only entity besides his mother ever to love him unconditionally—was dead, and Thor was badly injured.  Loki had little hope left but vengeance.

Yet when that murderous purple hand had wrapped itself around his neck, Loki realized he’d overlooked the one thing he might still have accomplished.

Thanos’s golden gauntlet only bore two Infinity Stones so far: Astridr’s blue Space Stone and the violet Power Stone.  Loki did not know where the other stones were—except for one, the red Reality Stone.  That one resided in the midst of the deep-space mining facility Knowhere, in the possession of Taneleer Tivan, the Collector.

Loki cast a wild-eyed look at his brother, but he couldn’t speak for the fist crushing his windpipe—and even if he could, he had no time left to beg Thor to go to Taneleer and warn him.  No time left to explain why.  No time left for anything.

\--

to be continued


	2. Chapter 2

**Five Years Later**

The planet known as Collecton had stood empty for some time.

Not empty of objects: great halls and stadiums remained, filled with items.  Some would be considered treasure, others junk.  Libraries of books (both physical and digital), massive servers of video and audio files, galleries of art and artifacts, repositories of all kinds covered much of the planet’s land masses.

Not empty of life: zoos, aquariums, gardens, arboretums, insectariums, and corrals filled up the rest of the land, and each of these was filled in turn by flora and fauna.  The few, small oceans teemed with sea creatures.

Not empty of sentiency either: computers maintained the temperature, humidity, and air flow of each structure.  Robots tended the captive plants and animals, cleaned the empty halls and rooms, performed maintenance on one another.  Intricate programming monitored cryogenically preserved life, from viruses and bacteria, to massive creatures.

Collecton continued its existence, filled with all the things whose purpose it was to store.  It thrived quite well, and could thrive into eternity, without the one thing it lacked: sapience.

Some time ago, its owner had fled there from Knowhere, bruised and battered and devastated.  He was the one who had built up Collecton, the only one allowed on its surface to see the wonders it housed; and when he turned to ash with the sob of one reprieved, no one knew, or would have cared had they known.  The half of the universe which did not disappear with him, had other concerns.

\--

Then one day, the long since dissolved ash reappeared and reformed itself into Taneleer Tivan, slumped on the floor of his grand foyer.  The Collector gasped and felt himself all over—wrinkled clothing, rumpled hair, lined face on which tears had not dried.  He existed once more.

“Shit,” Taneleer hissed.  He pounded his fist on the marble tiled floor of the home he kept on Collecton, winced at the pain in his recently broken hand, and swore again.  “ _Shit!_ ”

He did not know how long he had been gone.  To Taneleer, it felt as if no time had passed at all.  One moment, he had been sitting there, feeling himself disintegrate with a deep sense of relief; the next, he was still sitting there but whole again, cursing whatever—or whoever—had brought him back into existence.

_I thought I was finally dying—I thought I could escape this miserable existence._   The Collector dropped his forehead to rest on his bent knees, drawn up to his chest.  _I thought I could forget him. . . ._  

“Oh dear, what _has_ upset you so?”

The cool, cocky voice cut through Taneleer’s brooding and left him shaken.

_Impossible,_ he thought.

“Will it cheer you up to hear that I’ve brought you a present?” the voice continued.  Taneleer wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, smearing his glove with runny eyeliner, and made himself look up.  He feared he had gone mad and would see nothing there, no one to have spoken in the light, teasing voice that made his heart race.

Yet when Taneleer looked, there indeed stood the black-haired, green-eyed man he loved, holding a crystalline aqua cube in one outstretched hand.  Loki flicked his wrist to toss the cube up a few inches in the air, then caught it again.

“Tesseract,” Taneleer said rather stupidly.

“Collector,” said the tesseract.  Taneleer started, then got to his feet in a tangle of sore, protesting limbs.

“What—is this a trick?  Are you _real_?” he stammered.  He kept his eyes fixed on Loki, fearing that the other man would vanish if he looked away.  “He said—I thought you were dead.”

“Apparently, I was,” Loki conceded.  “Astridr says—oh!”  Taneleer had stumbled over to him and clapped a shaking hand to the side of Loki’s face; then he drew it back, pulled off his glove, and pushed his fingers into Loki’s hair.

“You _are_ real,” Taneleer murmured.

“Yes.”  Loki smiled at him, the very rare smile of his that was not mischievous or taunting but affectionate and sincere.

Taneleer embraced him.  He pressed his lips to Loki’s dark hair and closed his eyes, sighing when he felt Loki’s arms encircle him.  One corner of the tesseract, which Loki still held, dug into a sore spot on Taneleer’s back, but he welcomed the pain.  It made the reality of the situation all the clearer.

Taneleer whispered, “My dear Loki.”

“Taneleer.”  Loki held him for a few seconds then stepped back to look over the Collector.  “But what _has_ happened to you?  You look terrible.”

“Thank you for that astute observation, my dear,” Taneleer retorted with little ire.  “I will tell you, but come sit down first.”  He gestured for Loki to follow him from the foyer into a sitting room, in which Taneleer displayed some of his favorite artifacts.  Taneleer was the only one who ever sat there to admire them; even Loki had never been to Collecton before, and he looked around with interest—keen interest, in fact.

Taneleer eyed him as they sat down in two facing chairs, then said, “I don’t trust that look on your face, darling.  If you meant what you said about giving me your tesseract, I do hope you weren’t planning on making a trade.”

Loki smiled—mischievous this time—and replied, “No, not a trade.  I’ll explain what I have in mind, but first, I want to hear about you.”

So Taneleer told him how Thanos had come to Knowhere, demanding the Reality Stone.  The Collector explained glumly, “He destroyed everything, not only my museum but the mining operations as well—all of it.  The survivors fled, and there’s nothing much left to the place anymore.  I left Knowhere too and came here once Thanos had gone.”

“And he did. . . this to you?”  Loki gestured at Taneleer’s bruised face.  “It seems that every time I meet you, you’ve managed to get yourself injured in one way or another.”  Despite the rather flippant words, Taneleer knew Loki well enough to recognize his concern.

“He did worse than this, but I had some time to recover.  You remember how quickly I heal,” Taneleer said.  “Thanos would have killed me if he could have—and until now, I wished that he had.”

Loki raised a dark eyebrow.  “Not because you lost your museum for the second time?”

“No.”  Taneleer fixed his eyes on the green ones watching him.  “Because I lost you.  Once he’d taken the Reality Stone, Thanos showed me what he’d done to all the others who’d opposed him—so I wouldn’t be inclined to try taking the Stone back, he said.  Of course he had no idea that you meant any more to me than the others did, but I saw you die.  Both of you,” he added with a glance at the tesseract.

“But Tan—with all of this. . . .”  Loki gestured broadly to indicate not only the items in the sitting room, but on Collecton in general.  “You told me once that you collected these things exactly for such a situation, to preserve fragments of the universe in case something destroyed it.  Knowing that you had succeeded—didn’t that bring you some fulfillment, at least?”

Taneleer shrugged.  “I suppose it might have, eventually.  But with you gone, I only felt that I had failed.  Saving artifacts of the universe—it’s important, yes.  I still believe that.  Yet artifacts cannot replace the people who created them, and in that perspective, I _did_ fail to save the universe.  I realized that, because it didn’t matter that I had things to remember you by.  None of those things was the same as having _you_.”

Loki bit his lip and looked at the Collector without speaking.

“And then,” Taneleer went on, “I assume that Thanos did get the other Infinity Stones, and that he did what he told me he was planning—to destroy half of that universe I thought I was saving.  At the very least, he destroyed _me_.  I felt myself. . . dissolving, I suppose you would say.  And I was glad of it.”  He gave a rueful laugh and concluded, “Until I came back.  Do you know what happened?  I can’t imagine that monster having regrets and undoing what he’d done.”

“I only know what Astridr tells me,” replied Loki, looking down at the cube in his slender hands.  Instead of glowing brightly, she seemed dimmer than in the past, subdued somehow.  “Perhaps she should explain instead of me.”

The tesseract spoke in her lovely, musical voice, “If you wish.  You are correct, Tivan, in that it was not Thanos who restored you.  You are also correct that he did achieve his goal of destruction.  I, of course, was dead by that time.  _Crunched_ , according to what I saw.”  Loki winced.

“What you saw?” Taneleer prompted.  “How?  And how are you alive _now_ if—”

“If you please, I am coming to that,” the tesseract interrupted him, although she sounded unperturbed by his questions.  “Simply put, it was the Avengers who reversed Thanos’s act.  After he was finished with the Infinity Stones, he destroyed them.  When the Avengers discovered this, they traveled through time to gather the Stones from the past, created their own Infinity Gauntlet, and used it to restore the beings Thanos had eradicated.  Including you.  Of which I am quite glad, in the event that you were wondering, because you have brought my _smaar brodir_ such joy.  Which is not to say that I am not fond of you as well, perhaps thinking of you as another _brodir,_ though not so _smaar,_ as you are more than quite a bit older than Loki, although hardly as old as I.”

“Ah—thank you, my dear,” Taneeler put in, hoping to stop her rambling politely.  “But could you explain more about how you and Loki didn’t—er—die?”

“Oh, that.  Yes!” the tesseract enthused.  “After the Avengers gathered the Infinity Stones, I had a brief moment alone with the Stones, before they extracted the Space Stone from within me.  _Without_ destroying me, I might add, which goes to prove that the crunching was quite unnecessary.  Anyhow!  Finding myself in the presence of all six Infinity Stones, I was quite curious as to what all the fuss was about, so I used them to peek at the future.  I saw my own death, of course, but I _had_ always expected that the Space Stone would lead to my demise.  Far more intriguing was that I saw Loki handing me _to_ Thanos.”

Taneleer glanced from her to Loki, who looked rather embarrassed.  “You _gave_ her to him?”

“He would have killed my brother if I hadn’t,” Loki protested, a bit sullenly.

“Please know I do not blame you for it, Loki,” the tesseract assured him.  “When I said I was intrigued, it was at seeing myself in the possession of you at all.  Remember, I came from the past, and this past version of myself had never met you.  So naturally, my curiosity now extended to the question of who this man was and how he came to possess me.  Then, a moment later, I saw Thanos kill Loki as well, but only after Loki attempted to take his life.  More curiosity about this brave trickster!  There is an old saying on Kythica, my home world—‘Curiosity killed the tesseract, satisfaction brought her back.’  I had that one quoted at me quite a bit before I left, because I _have_ always been frightfully curious.  But now, I thought, my curiosity had led me to see a future where the tesseract really _was_ killed, and perhaps satisfaction might truly bring her back—if only I could learn enough to understand how to change this future!”

_She doesn’t have to breathe,_ Taneleer thought. _That’s how she can go on for so long._

“So!  I used the Stones to look at my earlier future—how I fell in with my _smaar brodir_ and our adventures together—and I realized how much he must mean to my future self—which is me, you understand.  And I knew that I must try my best to save both myself and him.  I was unsure of how to accomplish this, until I realized the answer was simple: I had only to remember.”

The tesseract finally paused in her narration, for effect, Taneleer surmised.  He gratified her by asking, “Remember what, exactly?”

She replied, “My future!  I could prevent that future from happening if I remained alert and remembered every detail about when and how Thanos intended to destroy me.  So that is what I did.”  Now the tesseract was annoyingly succinct, just when Taneleer _wanted_ to hear more.

“But what did you _do_?” he demanded.

Loki answered for her: “She released the Space Stone into Thanos’s hand and tessered away in the instant before he would have crushed her.  He had no cause to pursue her further once he had the Stone.”

“Tessered away?  You can still do that without the Stone?” Taneeler asked the tesseract.

She replied primly, “Of course.  You’ve met other tesseracts, _they_ tessered, did they not?  I do not need the Space Stone to do so, as you ordinary three-dimensional beings would.  I don’t glow quite as much as I did while carrying the Stone, but otherwise, I am still quite functional.”

“All right, I understand,” groaned the Collector.  “To where _did_ you tesser, then?”

“Directly behind me, apparently,” Loki said with a smirk, “because she tessered _me_ away an instant later.  We’ve been waiting for you ever since, until we saw other beings restored and knew you’d be back too.”

“Waiting. . . where?” Taneleer asked.  The whole story made him feel disoriented, even a little dizzy.  “You haven’t been _here_ the entire time?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of impinging on your hospitality that way, when you weren’t even here,” said Loki airily.  “I stayed with your brother.”

“My _brother_?”  Taneleer clenched his hands over the arms of his elaborate chair.  “That flirtatious, perverted—”

“I didn’t exactly have many options!” Loki shot back with the hint of a glare.  “Asgard has been destroyed, and I’d already spent some time with him before—”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Perhaps you two should discuss this matter later?” the tesseract suggested.  “Although I can assure you that nothing untoward happened, Tivan.  Loki has been quite faithful to you.”  Taneleer exhaled and nodded; then the tesseract rambled on, “At least on this most recent visit, while _I_ was present.  I can make no guarantees about what occurred during his previous stay.”

“Astridr, that is not helpful,” Loki hissed at her.  “Taneleer—”

The Collector waved him off tiredly.  “Never mind.  I believe you.  What matters is that you were safe—that you _are_ safe.  But from now on, you _will_ stay here, won’t you?”

“If you’ll have me,” said Loki with surprisingly humility.

“Of course I will, my dear.  Both of you,” Taneleer added to include the tesseract.  “Loki, I assume that was your idea as well, if you are giving her to me?”

“I may have exaggerated—it’s more of a loan.”  Even as he spoke, Loki’s hands closed around the tesseract protectively—and possessively.  “But I know she will be safe here in your collection, and as long as I have access to her—”

“Of course, of course!  She is your tesseract after all,” Taneleer assured him, until the tesseract spoke up.

“Rather, I am my own tesseract!  . . . However, I am very tired and a long rest in a safe place would be welcome,” she finished modestly.

“I know just the spot.”  Taneleer got to his feet and cleared the center of a mirrored display case, pushing aside an enormous, intricately carven gemstone to make space.  Loki came over and placed the tesseract in the empty spot, where the mirrors reflected her surface brilliantly.

“Yes, you look lovely here, Astridr,” Loki told her.  She sparkled a little and appeared to admire her reflection in the mirrors.

“This is quite acceptable,” the tesseract announced.

Turning back to Loki, Taneleer added, “And as for _you_ , I have plenty of extra rooms.  You can choose whichever you’d like.  Although. . . .”  He stepped closer and cupped his hands under Loki’s jaws.  “I do hope you’ll spend tonight with me.”

Loki smiled and put his own hand to Taneleer’s hair, which he attempted to smooth as he replied, “I think I would like that.”  He curled his fingers behind the Collector’s head and drew him forward into a long kiss.  Taneleer closed his eyes blissfully and embraced Loki when their mouths finally broke apart.

“I love you, Tan,” Loki whispered.  He said those words rarely, which made them all the more precious to Taneleer now.

“How I love you, my divine prince,” the Collector murmured against Loki’s slender white neck.  “And how glad I am to have you back.”

\--

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this story is sort of dull, but it serves its purpose of fixing things to my satisfaction. Hopefully, in the future I'll come up with more exciting adventures for this troublesome threesome :D


End file.
